


Now Lie In It

by KimliPan



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Bed Making, Kylux - Freeform, M/M, OCD, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-08 16:28:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6863032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KimliPan/pseuds/KimliPan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Hux gets up for his morning routine, he leaves Kylo Ren sleeping in his bed. The fact that he didn't have the chance to make it is getting on his nerves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Now Lie In It

**Author's Note:**

> My first Kylux fic. Do I get a welcome basket for moving into Trash Town?

Hux's bed is likely still un-made.

Today is the first day of his living memory he can recall having left that detail undone, and it festers at the back of his mind even as he tries to focus on a proposition given to him by Phasma. Something about additional training measures. Discipline, loyalty, and a criticism about the austerity of his troops.

She walks him through a mass of black-and-white armor. They're drilling with their blasters, the same drill Hux had learned from his father. His temples flex as he grinds his teeth together, eyes moving from his troops and back to Phasma.

Right on the tip of his tongue, his confession lingers. It's like she already knows it. She could be testing him, trying to make him confess that while his soldiers must pass their morning inspections and their General's blankets lie creasing in a wrinkled heap.

"General?" asks Phasma. 

Pathetic. He can't believe the awful, careless excuse of a sleeping man is the reason for his newfound double standard. And even worse yet, the sleeping man, unceremoniously sprawled across his bed, was of all people, Kylo Ren.

The bed still un-made.

At least, it must be. It has to be. He hates not knowing for sure, but he doesn't have time to double back. And if he knows anything for certain, it's that Ren can barely even carry out duties as assigned. He would certainly not choose to pick up another man's slack.

"Are you alright, sir?"

"Do it," he says, folding his hands over his stomach. The pressure there comforts him, and he tightens his lips into a thin, polite smile at Phasma. "Implement it, effective tomorrow."

"Yes, of course."

With a respectful bow from the captain, Hux excuses himself just in time to see Ren casually strolling the upper deck, looking down at the sea of Storm Troopers training around him.

His hands move behind his back as he straightens his shoulders and plants his feet squared off in the ground. When he looks up at the mask, he imagines the man beneath it gazing back at him. He wills Ren to look around them, to see his Storm Troopers as they are:

Finely-trained. Team-oriented. A well-oiled machine with more drive and more power than any clone army could hope to achieve. And while Ren can't even make a bed, he would throw all their hard work into the void.

Hux is the one to break their gaze.

Ren likely left the bed as unkempt as any other part of his life. And even if he had made it, Hux is sure he would have left the corners un-tucked or the pillows in a bunched-up mess at the head.

Without wanting to think more on it, he leaves the way he came in.

And while he works throughout the day, his fingers itch to grab his sheets and pull them taut. The distraction weakens him, and every time he notices himself staring off while someone speaks to him, he thinks how Ren has done this. Ren makes a mess of him. _Ren makes him weak_.

He's standing beside one of the officers in the command center when Ren shows himself a second time. He's looming over them, Hux suspects to intimidate. But his presence is more of an annoyance than anything else. The officer is mid-sentence when Hux snaps,

"Haven't you got better things to do than to micro-manage my every move?"

A twitch of a muscle under his eye. He should not have lost his temper in front of his crew. Snapping without provocation likely made him appear weak. But Ren made him sloppy – he made his mind a mess.

"Your every move?" Ren asks. He evens his footing, folds his hand behind his back. For all that faux-mystique and surety he tries to muster, his attempts at powerplay are as transparent and clumsy as a child's.

"And now you mock me." He shouldn't engage, but he can't resist.

The officer excuses himself, leaving Hux with only Ren's attention. _Smart man,_ he thinks even as aggravation wells up in the bowel of his gut. He wants to push that helmet up and run his fingers through that dark hair. How satisfying it would be to give it a nice, sharp tug. To feel that mess of a man surrender beneath him. To see him _enjoying_ himself again.

"I can tell you're smug underneath that helmet. I don't need the force to know that."

And even just saying it gives Hux a reminder of their out-of-hand flirtation from last night, of how it felt to have that jolt of excitement in the lowest part of his stomach. His irritation wanes, leaving a half-quirked smile kicking up at the corner of his lips.

"I have plenty to be smug about, _General._ "

If that officer hadn't excused himself, Hux would certainly dismiss him now. He wonders idly if Ren ever had any kind of flirtation before this; his attempts came off as both cock-sure and insecure, almost boyishly inexperienced. Stepping forward, he whispers in a bit of a hiss, "You are bordering on embarrassing yourself as much as me." And on instinct, he reaches out to smooth a wrinkle of fabric beneath the other man's belt, tugging at the fabric from underneath.

Kylo Ren grabs onto Hux's wrist and twists it backwards, though without much pressure.

Hux actually laughs as he pulls his wrist from the grip. "Didn't like that, did you?" he asks as his hands fall at his sides, loose and comfortable.

But Ren doesn't say anything, and Hux doesn't know what he's thinking; anger, he can read easily enough without seeing the other man's face, but it's not brazen and his weight shifts off-center. He just hovers in what feels like an awkward silence before turning and leaving, hands in fists at his sides.

 

When Hux finally returns to his quarters that evening, Kylo Ren is on his bed with his helmet balanced in his lap. Hux pauses in the threshhold before allowing the door close behind him, his eyes moving over the seated man before him. He does not look particularly playful, nor does he seem to care to try and seduce Hux for the second night in a row. He just seems awkward, unsure.

But the bed _is_ made.

And Hux feels gratified that he was right, with as heaped as his pillows are and as wrinkled as the corners hang. He lets out a breath and crosses the room to stand over Ren who looks up at him the same way he looks up at Snoke – like he needs validation. He needs to be reassured he hasn't screwed up too badly, but he's ready to defend himself. To fight if he needs to. Hux clenches his jaw, preparing himself for a conversation he already knows he will not be good at.

"Thank you," he says, tense. "For making the bed." He shouldn't have to say it. It should have been expected. But for some odd reason, he doesn't mind.

"I didn't do it this morning."

The lines of Hux's lips tighten. He looks away from Ren and slowly removes his gloves, lying them flat in the same spot of his bedside table as always. "That doesn't surprise me," he says, trying to keep his reactions neutral but honest. His bedroom is not a place he cares to trigger one of Kylo Ren's tantrums, and the fragility of his ego is apparent.

Ren heaves a sigh as if he's frustrated, and Hux stops to look at him, somewhat impatient.

"If you've something to say, then say it."

He picks up Ren's helmet from his lap and places it next to his gloves on the table.

"I saw that it… _bothered_ you."

Hux raises a brow. So he read his mind? He hadn't felt it. But then, he had been… distracted for the better part of the day.

"And I saw that it bothered you when I touched your robes," Hux says, moving to stand directly over Ren so he can run his fingers through his hair. And he does.

Ren tilts his head back and does something odd: He _smiles._ It's somewhat boyish and honest, and it's different from the loaded back-and-forth of their usual banter.

Then Hux realizes it. This badly made bed is as failed an attempt to prove himself as anything else. It is Kylo Ren's attempt to make amends, perhaps. It _is_ odd that he stayed after completing the chore, and he especially didn't have to confess. Were Hux in his shoes, he would have left the bed alone, unmade, and never breathed a word.

He bends over and kisses that smile off him, though the angle is odd because he's standing too close; Kylo has to lean back too far, but Hux lets the weight of the other man's warm head rest in his hands. He thinks this is better than saying _thank you_ again, and he wills Kylo feel the sudden warmth spreading through his chest.

"Good work," he says as he pushes Ren onto the bed.

Then the flirtiness is back.

"Don't patronize me, General," he says, and Hux smirks.

"Patronize you?" asks Hux.

"And now you mock me."

He climbs over Kylo onto the barely-made bed. It'll only gets messier in a moment, anyway.


End file.
